Our understanding of proper album length has been really shaped by the medium (the record, the cd) and by the economics of the music industry... there is nothing inherently normal or natural about an album being 80 mins long (or x tracks deep).

length should be determined by what the artist wants to do with a given release, and that "what" can encompass any number of goals.

One of my favorite releases when I was younger was Tori Amos's Hey Jupiter EP. It had a remix/diff. version of HJ, two popular b-sides recorded live, a wonderful and disturbing organ version of 'Professional Widow', and a live cover tune (Somewhere over the rainbow). She had several discs like this (I can think of two from Little Earthquakes, at least one from UtP, and one legit one from Boys for Pele), usually including a single from her major release of the time, a cover or two, and a few b-sides.

With Tori, the EP worked ... it allowed her non-album tracks to circulate and gain as much of a fanbase as her album material and dropped a few extra crumbs to engage listeners in the process. I'm sure the rec company didn't mind, but neither did the fans. And at a time when materially collecting an artist's output still offered a sense of satisfaction, it certainly added to Tori's mystique and mythology...

All of that being said, I don't think shorter releases are used as effectively as they could be... folks should take a lesson from early Tori, lol...

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~